Forward Deployed Engineer - Mountain View

The Company

Commerce

IQ is building the AI platform that runs commerce for the world's largest brands. We are not selling AI demos. We are shipping AI agents for content, media, and sales into the workflows of the Fortune 100 every week.

2,200+

Customers

10 of Top 12

CPG Companies

900+

Retailers Connected

$200M+

Raised

Customers include Coca-Cola, Nestlé, Colgate-Palmolive, Mondelez, Samsung, and Kellogg's. Backed by Soft Bank, Insight Partners, and Madrona. Headquartered in Mountain View with teams across the US, India, Canada, and the UK. Pre-IPO.

The Role:

As a Forward Deployed Engineer, you will partner closely with our founders and the AI Product Managers to prototype and deploy AI‑driven solutions that solve our customers' most pressing problems. This is a founding engineering role with high visibility; you will report directly to our Head of AI Strategy and Outcomes. You will also partner with other members of the executive leadership team who are based at our Mountain View HQ, collaborate with our Bangalore‑based engineering team, and engage daily with enterprise customers.

You will help define how we work with our most important customers, shape the company's first ever forward deployed engineering function, and contribute to our mission of helping brands win in AI‑driven e-commerce.

Location / Travel:

This position is on-site in Mountain View, CA with approximately 50% travel expected to client locations.

What You'll Do:

* Build prototypes with customers:
Work alongside our AI Product Manager to understand real‑world problems, rapidly scope use cases and create working prototypes. You'll engage in hands-on discovery and convert insights into functional demos for prospective and existing customers.

* Integrate data and create new AI agents:
Ingest data from disparate sources (ERPs, ecommerce platforms, custom APIs) and build agents that solve the specific use cases uncovered during discovery. This includes turning edge‑case business rules into runtime‑editable settings rather than hard‑coded logic.

* Own AI outcomes:
Lead customer‑facing demonstrations and proof‑of‑concepts. You'll instrument and tune models using production feedback loops to ensure prototypes deliver measurable outcomes.

* Rapidly iterate & generalize:
Collaborate with engineering teams in Bangalore to transform prototypes into robust features. Your work will be implemented into our core product - patterns that succeed in one deployment (custom adapters, monitoring dashboards) should be packaged as reusable modules.

* Own the full lifecycle:
Support engagements from pre‑sales scoping through post‑deployment refinement. You'll help to negotiate scope, push back on unreasonable asks, and ensure long‑term customer success. Additionally, you'll act as the technical liaison between customers, product managers, and engineering.

* Cultivate customer relationships:
Develop deep empathy for our customers' business drivers and serve as their advocate. Use clear, engaging communication to convey technical concepts to non‑technical stakeholders, build trust and handle high‑stakes conversations.

What You'll Bring:

* Experienced engineer (4-6 years or more) with a strong foundation in software development (coding, problem solving and debugging).

* Comfortable coding in Python or Java and learning new technologies quickly.

* Full‑stack & data integration skills. Experience connecting to APIs, working with SQL/No

SQL databases, streaming/ETL pipelines and deploying AI/LLM‑based agents.

* Customer‑facing problem solver. You enjoy working directly with external users, conducting discovery, and translating ambiguous requirements into working solutions. You have excellent communication skills and the ability to simplify complex technical topics.

* Rapid prototyper. You are biased towards action and are comfortable delivering minimal‑viable solutions, collecting feedback and iterating quickly.

* Collaborative & global. You're effective working across time zones with leadership in California and engineering in Bangalore. You embrace Commerce

IQ's leadership principles of ownership, deep diving into details, getting stuff done, thinking from first principles and…